y uneaten, and even joined her in a cigarette.

After dinner she set the electric piano-player going. And he augured
the worst when she sat down on a cushion footstool at his knee, and put
her hand on his.

"Darling, be nice to me. I had to see Jon--he wrote to me. He's going
to try what he can do with his mother. But I've been thinking. But it's
really in YOUR hands, Father. If you'd persuade her that it doesn't
mean renewing the past in any way! That I shall stay yours, and Jon
will stay hers; that you need never see him or her, and she need never
see you or me! Only you could persuade her, dear, because only you
could promise. One can't promise for other people. Surely it wouldn't
be too awkward for you to see her just this once--now that Jon's father
is dead?"

"Too awkward?" Soames repeated. "The whole thing's preposterous."

"You know," said Fleur, without looking up, "you wouldn't mind seeing
her, really."

Soames was silent. Her words had expressed a truth too deep for him to
admit. She slipped her fingers between his own--hot, slim, eager, they
clung there. This child of his would corkscrew her way into a brick
wall!

"What am I to do, if you won't, Father?" she said very softly.

"I'll do anything for your happiness," said Soames; "but this isn't for
your happiness."

"Oh! it is; it is!"

"It'll only stir things up," he said grimly.

"But they are stirred up. The thing is to quiet them. To make her feel
that this is just OUR lives, and has nothing to do with yours or hers.
You can do it, Father, I know you can."

"You know a great deal, then," was Soames' glum answer.

"If you will, Jon and I will wait a year--two years if you like."

"It seems to me," murmured Soames, "that you care nothing about what I
feel."

Fleur pressed his hand against her cheek.

"I do, darling. But you wouldn't like me to be awfully miserable." How
she wheedled to get her ends! And trying with all his might to think
she really cared for him--he was not sure--not sure. All she cared for
was this boy! Why should he help her to get this boy, who was killing
her affection for himself? Why should he? By the laws of the Forsytes
it was foolish! There was nothing to be had out of it--nothing! To give
her to that boy! To pass her into the enemy's camp, under the influence
of the woman who had injured him so deeply! Slowly--inevitably--he
would lose this flower of his life! And suddenly he was conscious that
his hand was we